Central Nagoya · OsuNo.1046★★Open in map →

Osu Shopping District

localOff the trail — and worth it

A grid of fully roofed shopping arcades in central Nagoya, hemmed in by wide avenues and anchored at each end by a temple. Electronics, secondhand clothing, street food and an old variety hall sit under the same cover.

FromNagoya Station
~15 minSubway, one change from Nagoya
Get off atOsu Kannon Station (Tsurumai Line)
On foot
Osu Shopping District

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is a busy, well-signposted district rather than a hidden one, and both the city and the prefecture put it near the top of their own guides. What is less known is its shape: the arcades are roofed in a single continuous line between two temples, which makes Osu a weather-proof walk rather than a set of separate shopping streets.

Where it is

27 more notes in Aichi · open the map →

What to look for — in walking order

Osu KannonAlan & Flora Botting / CC BY-SA 2.0

Osu Kannonthe district's western anchor, a Shingon temple whose Osu library holds some 15,000 old volumes including a National Treasure copy of the Kojiki
Osu Kannon-dorithe covered lane leaving the temple forecourt, one of the arcades in a district of roughly 1,200 shops and businesses
Nio-mon-doria fully roofed arcade of secondhand clothing, food stands and small independent storefronts
Osu Engeijoa variety hall inside the district, kept going as Nagoya's home stage for rakugo and manzai
Bansho-jithe eastern anchor, the Oda family temple where a mechanical puppet retells Nobunaga's outburst at his father's funeral

How to actually get there

Nagoya Station → Fushimi (Higashiyama Line, one stop) → Osu Kannon Station (Tsurumai Line, one stop).
Osu Kannon Station exit 2 → Osu Kannon temple forecourt (walk about three minutes).
Walk east under the roof from Osu Kannon-dori through Nio-mon-dori toward Banshoji-dori.
Leave the arcades at the eastern end and take the subway home from Kamimaezu.

Subway from Nagoya Station, one change at Fushimi: Nagoya Station →(Higashiyama Line, one stop)→ Fushimi →(Tsurumai Line, one stop)→ Osu Kannon Station, then about three minutes on foot to the temple forecourt where the arcades begin. Aichi Prefecture's official site lists this as the standard route into the district. Both lines run frequently through the day, so there is no timetable to plan around.
Return from Kamimaezu or Osu Kannon: Kamimaezu, at the eastern end of the arcades, sits on both the Tsurumai and Meijo lines and puts you back at Nagoya Station with one change. Osu Kannon Station at the western end works the same way through Fushimi. Late-evening services thin out before the subway closes for the night, so check the platform board if you stay for dinner.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Osu fills the blocks south of Sakae, boxed in by Otsu-dori, Fushimi-dori, Osu-dori and Wakamiya-odori. Its lanes are covered arcades — Osu Kannon-dori, Nio-mon-dori, Banshoji-dori, Shintenchi-dori and others — laid out as a rough grid rather than a single spine. The city's tourism office notes that the roofed route runs in one line from the Bansho-ji entrance all the way west to Osu Kannon. What sits under that roof is deliberately unsorted. PC parts share a block with vintage kimono racks, a bubble-tea counter stands beside a temple gate, and Aichi Prefecture's official guide calls the electronics section the region's answer to Akihabara.

How to enjoy it

Walk it west to east. Enter at Osu Kannon Station, cross the district under the arcades, and surface at Kamimaezu without retracing a step. Because the route is roofed end to end, rain or midsummer heat costs you nothing here, which makes Osu one of the few long city walks in Nagoya that does not depend on the sky.

Background & history

Osu was a temple town before it was a shopping street. Osu Kannon, formally Hoshoin, stood in Mino until Tokugawa Ieyasu had it moved to the new castle town in 1612, and its library came with it. Bansho-ji, the Oda family's memorial temple founded in 1540, was shifted in the same castle-building years and later opened its land to shops. The arcades grew on that temple ground, thinned out through the late twentieth century, and were pulled back to life by the merchants' own street festivals.

Before you go

Cash: The arcades are public covered streets and free to walk. The Nagoya subway takes manaca and all ten of Japan's mutually usable transit IC cards, so a Suica or ICOCA bought in another region works at the gate. Individual shops and food stands set their own payment rules, so carry a little cash alongside a card.
Good to know: The main lanes are roofed from end to end, so rain and summer sun are not a factor; the cross streets between them are open to the sky. Shops keep their own hours rather than a district-wide schedule, so check the listing for any one store you are travelling for.
Another way: The district's other gateway is Kamimaezu Station, where the Tsurumai and Meijo lines meet. Entering there drops you at the eastern end of the arcades and lets you walk the district the other way, toward Osu Kannon.
After you get off: From Osu Kannon Station, leave by exit 2 and walk about three minutes east to the temple forecourt. The covered arcade starts on the far side of it.